Thursday, May 24, 2012

We all seem to have those “Is it just me or…” moments.I had one just the other day during a
lunchtime walkabout which I take most sunny days.

This was one in which I took a usual route, west on Vine and
then either going out S. Broadway or on beyond the Lexington Center.This day I strolled through Triangle Park
over toward the historic W. Short St.The
park, for all of its renovation work, still has little for the noontime
pedestrian to do.

The tour down Vine
St continues to surprise me these two years since
the streetscape was essentially finished.The pedestrians are few and the service/delivery vehicles seem to park
with abandon on the new, wide pavers which are clearly intended for
people.There are a few “smoker’s posts”
near the office tower and they can make walking past a chore for the non-smoker
but otherwise there is little happening here.

I made an infrequent stop in the Victorian Square Shoppes and
wondered, almost aloud, how some of those places can stay in business.They do and more power to them, as I say
about the claims that we have too much vacant office space, just because I see
no activity does not mean that there is none.Victorian Square
is alive, maybe not robust, but alive.

Exiting near the corner of Short and Broadway and looking
back toward the Court House is about the time that it hit me.My “Is it just me or… moment” nearly bowled
me over, like the cyclist zipping down the sidewalk. Short St is the vibrant, pedestrian street
that we all would like downtown to be.

How many hours over the past decade, and several Urban
County Government administrations, have been spent of discussions and
negotiations concerning Vine St and what could be done to improve the freeway-like
atmosphere which has attached itself there?How many consultants submitted options on solutions over the years?After all that, has there been much noticeable
improvement?

There it was, Short
Street, stretching from Broadway to Limestone in
the noontime hour just bustling with sidewalk activity, street activity and the
sounds of downtown life.What I saw
before me was accomplished with minimal government dollars and much investment
by the private sector.It was not
perfect but it was quite vibrant.It has
been growing that way for a while now, gradually gaining, but this day it just
popped.

Main Street
still has its pedestrian activity and a number of café dining on the sidewalks
but not like the volume on Short.The
one-way traffic and the width may alter the cozy nature somewhat but I am not
sure that it makes that much of a difference.Main St
is quite a bit longer, so that may diffuse its activity, but it also has many
more blank walls with which the public must deal.

The public spaces along Main St, both Phoenix Park and the
Court House Plaza, see fairly consistent use though some may find the patrons a
little less than to their liking.Elsewhere
the comings and goings are a bit more sporadic.

The activity on Short
St is not all a bed of roses and some of the
thorns do prick at me.

With all of the restaurant and bar venues currently in
place, not all of them are open for the lunch hour, there will naturally be a
slew of delivery vehicles. I constantly wonder why the restaurants can take
delivery before or after the peak pedestrian times but the bars cannot.Why does it take three men and three or more
vehicles, at least two of which are extended length trailers, which block the
mid-block crosswalks near Cheapside.The soft drink companies and the spirit
companies can deliver with smaller trucks on these narrow streets, but beer
route drivers are special?

I also dislike the encroachment that some café diners make
into the remaining walkway.Each restaurant
is allowed a limited amount of sidewalk and will not police their paying
customers who - sometimes – snatch more chairs than usual at a table and spill
outside the allowed space.Common sense
should kick in at these times but maybe alcohol is involved.

Lastly, there are the cyclists, the dog owners and those
with over-sized strollers which try to negotiate or occupy extremely tight
spaces, usually to the detriment of good circulation.If the committee working on the food truck
locations can cite pedestrian obstructions as a concern, then they should be
looked at for all of downtown sidewalks.Cyclists are currently prohibited from downtown sidewalks by ordinance,
but it is rarely enforced and just plain ignored by the court system.Should we get all of our downtown streets as
active as Short St
has become there will be problems, so we might as well begin solving them now.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Correct.
That was the day when, at least, six of the downtown streets were
converted to one-way and new parking limitations for autos and trucks
set in place. Today, many of the parking rules and loading zones are
vastly different, but all but a few of the changed one-way streets are
still with us.

One-way
streets are a hot topic these days and I doubt if it is due to the
changes made back those 61 years ago. Downtown traffic has always
been a sore point and especially since the introduction of the
automobile. Even in the horse drawn buggy and wagons era there were
traffic problems. The conversation today is about slowing down the
traffic which moves through
downtown rather than just getting to and from downtown.

Is it
not odd that the morning rush hour traffic which flows well on the
two-way radial spokes of Richmond, Winchester/Midland, Tates Creek or
Leestown roads need the one-way uses of Main and Vine to get to where
they are going? During off-peak times are all of the vehicles solely
trying to get to the other side of town since many feel that downtown
is not a destination?

The 40
year experiment with one-way traffic on Main & Vine, the pattern
which many now believe that we cannot do without, may be a factor in
the oft referred decline of downtown and its bland atmosphere of
rapidly moving traffic and lack of pedestrians. The nice thing about
experiments like this is that the can be reversed.

Take
the example of East Short St from around the turn of the last
century. The section from Limestone to Walnut (now Martin Luther
King...) was made one-way. In the winter of 1926 a delegation of
Short street property owners petitioned for a repeal of that change
and it returned to a two-way street. Due to the narrowness of the
roadway where it passed the county jail, parking was prohibited for
its full length. Twenty-four years later, during the changes of 1950,
Short St was made one-way from Georgetown St to Deweese.

What
has surprised me most in doing research for this is the Limestone,
then U.S. 27, was still two-way and the oddest change was for Mill
and Upper Streets to assume part of that traffic as it passed through
town. Upper St was a southbound one-way at that point but not a part
of the national highway system and Mill St (or portions of it) was
northbound one-way.

Under
the 1950 change, Upper became northbound and Mill became southbound.
U.S. 27 traffic was diverted from North Broadway at Third and
apparently used Upper and Mill to connect with Bolivar, from which
one used Upper St to proceed south to Limestone and Nicholasville Rd.
This only last a few short years, since, as a pre-teen, I remember
Limestone and Upper as the exist today.

From
the map accompanying the newspaper article, the old version of Vine
St was changed to one-way from Broadway to Kentucky Ave. though I
have no recollection of that at all

The
plan of 1950 shows the westbound changes to Second St for both of its
East and West portions and Church street for its entire length, along
with Corral from Deweese to Midland.

That
leaves High and Maxwell Streets which became the one-way pair as we
know them today. As I have always known them from my days attending
Maxwell School. I don't think that I have ever heard anyone suggest
that it be any different. I do believe that if it is reverted to
two-way, then any parking on them anywhere would have to be
eliminated.

What
will this new, nearly half million dollar study determine for our
downtown streets? Will two-way streets add the necessary vitality to
the streetscape? Will this be another wasted attempt at “bringing
downtown back” which so many suburbanites bemoan from the safety of
their insulated subdivision communities.

Downtown
will never “come back” and I thank God for that. We can make it
better and not just from a traffic standpoint, and I thank a whole
handful of folks for that. But making it better is not as simple as
doing or undoing what may be “failed” experiments. It could be
tweaking some things and wholesale makeovers on others, so we need to
be thoughtful in how we proceed. Since they were looking at parking
restrictions and loading zones/times as part of the traffic(auto and
foot) problem, then maybe we should revisit them as well.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Downtown has seen a lot of effort and
money spent on it in the past few years. So much so, it seems like
we should be looking at other areas in which to share the wealth but
there is only so much wealth to go around. Still, somebody should be
doing something.

Well, there are other neighborhoods
which are doing something, whether with the government's help or
without it. I feel that the role of government is to do those things
that the people cannot or will not do for themselves. Public safety
is one thing but building, repairing or clearing sidewalks is quite
another.

The Main St,Vine St and South Limestone
streetscape improvements clearly demonstrate the worth of making said
improvements and now the Southland Dr area folks are working toward
sidewalks there. Our history of auto-centric development has allowed
many shopping centers built from the '50s up through the '90s to be
devoid of any walking facilities of any kind. The original
developers are long gone and the sidewalks need to be built, but it
should not fall to the government to fund the lions share. Even in
the name of public safety.

The sidewalks at your home, both the
one in front of your house and the one which leads to your front
door, are a focus of the curb appeal which welcome friends and family
into your home. They are a big part of a first impression.

Many houses built in the last few
decades seem to have walks which only go to the front driveway and
appear to shun anyone who may not drive. Visitors who have to park
on the street, either because the host cannot get their autos in the
garage or they have invited far more friends than they have space
for, by necessity still have to use the driveway. Even the next door
neighbor has to use the driveway.

I believe that by not tending to the
care and upkeep of the sidewalk on or abutting ones property, one is
showing utter disregard to their neighbors and, probably, to society
as a whole. It is also not government's job to remind you to maintain
the walks for the good of all, or to maintain them in your stead. I
think that we can all agree that there are better places to apply
their limited funds.

To a similar degree, the sidewalks in
neighborhood shopping areas should be a large part of the curb appeal
to the shops and restaurants there. Once again it should be a part of the
welcoming feeling of approaching a friendly environment. Why else do
you think that the office parks, despite their seas of parking, have
lavish landscaping around the doorways?

When it comes to the larger “planned”
shopping centers like the malls and their counterparts, it looks like
the “planning” went right out the window. There may be sidewalks
along the approaching roadways but getting to the entryways is
strictly through the vehicular area and its many obstacles. Try
walking from any of the residential areas around the Fayette Mall or
Hamburg to any of their popular stores and see how comfortable you
are. You might live close but the Walkscore is atrocious.

Lexington's best location for walking,
with a walkscore of 85, is the downtown area. Origins and destinations
within a reasonable distance, though not all of the origins are
residential in nature and good availability of walking paths to take.
But I wonder what the score would be if they took proper surface
maintenance and simple daily cleaning/litter control into account.

Have you looked, really looked at some
of our sidewalk conditions just a block or two off of the revitalized
Main and Vine? What about the cross streets which connect them;
Limestone, Upper, Market and Broadway which have remained untouched.
Many of the sections of pavement are cracked and flaking, or the
former tree wells are disintegrating and bulging. Litter and broken
glass from beverage bottles are frequent sights.

I have said before that the way we use
our public spaces is generally appalling and in some cases the
abusers are just human pigs, but really folks don't you think that we
can do better? We have a dedicated crew to police the heavily used
spaces and it is the ordained responsibility of the downtown property
owner/property manager to take care of the rest, but I don't think
that they do that good of a job of it.

Government has the obligation to take
care of the roadways and keep them in a safe and orderly manner and
they have the power to enforce that the sidewalks be held to the same
conditions. From where does this obvious disconnect arise? When and
where was the ball dropped?

These sidewalks are the focus of our
downtown curb appeal and we are allowing them to peel and fade like a
bad paint job on our finest houses. When are we going to bring our
downtown up to the standard where it should be? If the merchants and
property owners will not maintain them, should the government do the
job? Maybe yes, but the cost should be borne by those who have
refused to do it themselves and not spread across the community as a
whole. Or the whole nation by using Federal funds to do the job.

I think that it
should be the community's desire to make our entire city into a
walkers paradise, where every neighborhood has someplace attainable
by walking and safe ways of getting there. It will take effort and
commitment, but most likely, a change in attitude.

If it doesn't start
with downtown, then the neighborhoods should start it but it need to
start somewhere. I have pointed our some beginning places and I know
that there are others, if you do also then lets get to work on it.